Birthday Visit
by FurrySaint
Summary: On her birthday, Makoto visits her parents.


A figure stands at the entrance to the graveyard, the cold wind tugging at her clothes as though trying to pull her away from this lonely place.

She carefully makes her way through the tightly packed headstones, following a path she has tread every year for far too many years. She finally stops in front of one of the stones. Slowly her hand reaches out and traces the kanji carved into it...

K

I

N

O

She rests her hand on top of the stone and takes a moment to look out beyond the cemetery. Her green eyes looking past the temple entrance further down the hill, and over the trees beyond that. Seeing over the whole of the land, capped as it is by grey, lowering clouds. She looks back at the headstone.

"Hi Mom...Dad... I have some news. I...I've met someone. Someone...wonderful." She smiles and, after a moment, the smile turns into a wry grin. "It wasn't exactly what I expected though. It's a girl. And no, I didn't _have_ a girl, I _met_ a girl." She laughs. "And oooooh, _what_ a girl! She's beautiful, and smart-boy is she smart! She's just this cute, petite, little... Oh, I love her so much."

Her hand still resting on it, she crouches down beside the headstone to try to get away from the wind a little.

"I've told you about me being a Senshi and all. Well, she's one too. Ami-chan. Sailor Mercury. I...I don't know _when_ it started really. I just remember looking at her and suddenly realising how..._beautiful_...she looked. Then I'd catch her looking in _my_ direction, and she'd blush and look away. Now, Ami-chan blushes with the best of them, but it was always when she was looking at _me_. So, me being me, I wanted to find out why. Well, one day after we got done studying at Rei's, I went with her to her place 'cause I had a math test the next day, so I really needed to bone up on it. You know how I am with math," she says with a grin.

"We were about an hour into studying when I noticed her looking at me again. I'd look at her, she's blush and go back to looking at her books. After about the fourth time, I'd had enough. I put down my work, looked at her straight on, and asked her, 'Ami-chan, why do you keep looking at me?'" She laughs. "Oh, man! I have _never_ seen anyone turn that shade of red before! She got all flustered, and I just told her to just _tell_ me. Well, after a minute, she calmed down, looked right at me, and said that I was 'very easy to look at'." She pauses a moment. "Now, if some guy'd said that to me, he'd walk away funny and with a few less teeth, but... The way she said it..." Her hand moves to her chest. "When she said it, it felt like my heart was wrapped in a warm blanket." She leans her head against the stone and closes her eyes. "It made me feel like I did when you held me," she says in a soft voice.

After a minute she leans back and opens her eyes. "Well, whatever I had expected her to say, that wasn't it. I just sat there staring at her. My mind refusing to work. ...She...took it wrong. She started gathering her books and apologising and I could see she was about to cry, so I said the first thing that came to mind: 'You should look in a mirror more often.'" She laughs. "Of all the things I could have said, I picked the cheesiest. But it worked. She stopped and looked at me all 'What?'. I got up, took her arm and basically dragged her to the bathroom. She didn't try to stop me, I think she was in shock. When we got in there, I stood behind her and pointed at the mirror and told her to look. When she did I asked her what she saw. She looked at me in the mirror and just...deflated. She just gave up. She started crying and said, 'I see the most beautiful girl in the world. One who I have loved...for years.'" She pauses, looking down at the ground with a slight smile. "I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, smiled at her in the mirror, and said, 'Then you see the exact same thing I do.'"

She straightens up, her hand never having left the headstone. "My life is sure not what I expected it to be. But it is thanks to you, thanks to what you gave me in those oh-too-short years we were together, that this life was possible." For the first time since she begin speaking, tears fall from her eyes. "I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad. And I miss you terribly." She wipes her eyes and turns away, retracing her steps to the entrance where a blue-haired figure stands waiting for her.

-Fin-


End file.
